Toshiba Portégé R600-108 review

A fantastic business ultraportable, but bettered in key areas by its rivals

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Our Verdict

A slim, good looking and incredibly light laptop. As long as your needs are on the more basic end of the scale, you'll be very happy with this machine

For

Extremely lightweight

Resilient and stylish build

Good screen

Against

Low performance

Battery life could be better

Earlier in the year, Toshiba's Portégé R500 ultraportable proved to offer great usability and mobility.

The Portégé R600 (£1879 inc. VAT) now upgrades the range, and while performance and battery life are bettered by some rivals, it is the lightest business laptop we've seen so far.

The slim silver chassis weighs an incredible 825g, making it even lighter than any Netbook currently on the market.

However, it achieves this by using Solid State Drive storage and avoiding the use of an optical drive, so the light weight comes at the cost of reduced usability.

Lightweight SSD

The use of Solid State Drive storage reduces weight, but limits storage to just 128GB. The lack of an optical drive also means you cannot access DVDs or CDs while travelling.

While battery life is strong,running for 274 minutes, which makes it ideal for commuters and travellers.

Solid build

Despite its slim design, build quality is sturdy and ideal for travel use. The screen panel is 4mm thick and has a large degree of flexibility, which prevents cracking under pressure. All other areas of the chassis are also incredibly strong, so frequent travellers can feel confident in its resilience.

Usability is also fantastic. The keyboard is well made, with a firm yet comfortable typing action and proved to be one of the best among its peers. The touchpad is also large and easy to use, although the small mouse buttons are slightly less accessible.

The 12.1-inch transflective LCD screen uses a thin internal mirror to reflect ambient light back out of the screen. This improves visibility without draining extra power. Image quality is great for most business use, but we found the screen had a slight hazy quality to it.

The low-voltage processor reduces power consumption and keeps the chassis cool during use. However, it also provides average performance.

Commuter ultraportable

Business use is improved by the integrated 3G HSDPA module. It provides wireless internet access at mobile broadband speeds, so you can easily check email, use online messaging services and browse the internet wherever you go, which travellers will find incredibly useful.

The Toshiba Portégé R600 is bettered in terms of power and battery life, but it is still a great business ultraportable.

Its unmatched weight, great usability and stunning build quality are among the best we've seen, but consider your needs before buying.